Posts Tagged Buckingham Palace

One must admire the discipline required to be a soldier marching or standing at attention in front of places like The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier or Buckingham Palace. It’s amazing how a human can be so rigid, not smile as tourists taunt them, ignore the rain and snow and cold and heat, make their body perform repetitively and control their brains to not flip out. I don’t grasp it. Truthfully I would crack up within minutes. But obviously there are proud soldiers who volunteer for these honored posts.

Recently however, it appears that one guard who made the cut did have a modified breakdown on duty in England. Check out his antics worthy of a John Cleese comedy. Here are excerpts from an article that gives more details.

A source said that while the video may be entertaining, the incident is being taken ‘extremely seriously’ by army top brass. “It’s very serious,” the source said. “Those guards are there to guard the palace, not entertain tourists. I don’t want to downplay the gravitas of the situation.”

The three-minute video clip shows the soldier, wearing his his red tunic and bearskin, perform a series of stunts for onlooking tourists

The guard is first seen marching up and down the gravel forecourt, before breaking into pirouettes.

He can then seen picking up something from the floor and putting it in his pocket.

The soldier launches into a comical strut and pretends to polish his guard box with his knuckles.

Tourists can be heard laughing in the background, with one child saying: “Look at him spinning. That’s really silly. Do you think he will get told off for it by the policeman?”

His comical antics come to an end once the guard retreats to his box after giving his fellow guardsman a thumbs-up.

Orders for the duty which are read out before each two-hour shift and state: “You may not eat, sleep, smoke, stand easy, sit or lie down during your tour of duty.”